the United Nation’s Intergovernmental
Panel on Climate Change
(IPCC) has predicted that clean
energy will have to at least treble
in output in order to avoid catastrophic
climate change [1, 2]. Over the past few
decades, wind power generation has
been making a vital contribution to the
global effort of lowering the environmental
impact of electrical power generation.
Championed as an increasingly important
source of renewable energy, its contribution
is set to increase over the next 15
years with the construction of large offshore
wind parks in Northern Europe with
a planned capacity of up to 40 GW of
power. One of the main attractions of
going
offshore is the frequency of very
strong winds, which in turn can yield up
to 70 percent more energy than onshore
wind parks. Even though it is costlier to
construct offshore wind power parks, this
increase in yield combined with the fact
that many renewable energy technologies
have substantially advanced in terms
of performance and cost, could offset
these costs in the long run.